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A Social 2011 in Review

10 Mobile Social Trends for 2012 and Beyond: Customer Engagement Technology World 2011 Keynote

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Mobile social media was a big trend for 2011. And aren't you glad not to see a Weiner picture here?

A Social 2011 in Review
originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

Where did 2011 go? How did Pinterest, Bo.lt, and Sonar change how we interact with media, and with each other? What happened to Anthony Weiner and Osama Bin Laden? When did “+”join “@” in the digital lexicon?

In a year where I visited eight countries and read 95 books, I also managed to pen nearly 50 columns, and I reread them all so you don’t have to. Several themes emerged, with quite a few posts about startups, shopping, mobile social media, Google, and events. The year also brought its share of failures and disappointments to learn from. Here’s 2011 in review.

Startups

In January, we looked at how OneTrueFan extended check-ins to websites. It was subsequently acquired by gamification company BigDoor. Bo.lt made publishers squirm by letting anyone doctor webpages, and Sonar made some mobile users squirm by making it easier to find people near them. In August, we checked out what made Pinterest so addictive, and it only gained momentum since then, with Hitwise recently reporting that its traffic rose 4,000% in the past six months.

The year ended with two more relevant features. The previous column presented the first-ever Berky awards for social innovation, starring many startups, along with Google, which acted more like a startup this year more than any time since it went public. The week before, 16 resolutions for vendors provided advice that I wish was heeded more often. Just after the column was published, one visiting startup was so off-kilter that I thought it would go 0 for 16 until the head of business development pulled out his dongle (sorry, there’s no way to say that without a double entendre). 

Shopping

Social commerce went mainstream in 2011, at least in terms of marketer awareness. Unlike gamification, this isn’t a fad; it’s part of a lasting shift in consumer behavior. Social shopping was featured in April’s “Five Social Trends To Get Excited About Today” and later in “The Seven Types Of Mobile Social Commerce.” Recommendations are an especially important driver of social shopping, as certain people appreciate more than others (“The One-Percenters Of Recommendations”). At times, social media wasn’t given its proper credit for its role in how people shop. “The Infinite Moment of Truth” aimed to fix that, building on Google’s “Zero Moment of Truth.”

Mobile

Well over half of this year’s columns significantly featured mobile. If you want to brush up on mobile trends before 2012, consider some of these highlights: “Mobile Marketing Is Exploding, So Get A Strategy,” “Ten Social Local Technologies For Marketers,” “The 'S' In 4S Stands For Social,” “Facebook's Little 'M' KOs Three 'Ws',” “Ten Mobile Social Trends For 2012,” “20 New Confessions Of A Foursquare Super Mayor,” “101 Types Of Mobile Social Alerts,” and “The 7 Social Stages of NFC.”

Google

It’s amazing in retrospect that the one company most often featured in this series is still trying to find its footing in social media. That’s part of the fun, and it’s why Google inspired a column roughly every six weeks. Sometimes the focus was much bigger than Google, such as in “The Infinite Moment of Truth” mentioned above and “Keep It Strategic, Stupid.” This month brought the first post in quite awhile on YouTube. And then there were five about Google+: “Your Google+ Strategy Calculator,” “Your Google Plus FAQ,” “Why Google+ Matters,” “Why Google+ Doesn't Matter,” and “What You Won't Like about Google+ Pages.” For a social service with relatively tepid consumer interest in brands’ pages there, was this justified? I have no regrets, as the way Google infused the social layer with its other offerings may forever change marketers’ perceptions of treating social media as a silo.

Events

The universe is expanding, according to Hubble’s Law. So is the universe of events that marketers supposedly need to attend. It’s hard to top SXSW, which merited two columns each with its own metaphor: first the Tower of Babel, and then a Petri dish. Other highlights included the Consumer Electronics Show, the Shorty Awards, Social Media Week, Social Week, and MediaPost’s Social Media Insider Summit. Then there were global events that united many more of us. When America’s most wanted terrorist was killed, it created an opportunity to reflect on how social media contributed to our awareness of the event.

Failures and Disappointments

Did I get more cynical this year or was there more to be cynical about? It will be hard to ever top the epic failure of Representative Anthony Weiner, unless there’s a Senator Don Keeshlong setting up a Google+ Hangout with his webcam aimed below the belt. I may never get to have as much fun writing a column than when writing the headline, “Don’t Be a Weiner.” As for other blunders, Netflix will recover from its horrible year far sooner than Weiner will. Foursquare’s all that’s left of the check-in field, so it was a good year to see why some people stopped using it, and what happened to all the other check-in apps; the latter post came a month before Facebook acquired the ailing Gowalla. When I disliked MyLikes, it led to a rare rant on why “I Am Not A Social Publisher.” Fortunately, some bad ideas are short-lived, as discussed in “The Wrong Route To Social Commerce.”

People

Social media is, of course, all about people. My first column of 2011 paid tribute to my social family. I then checked in on our future bosses – the digital natives, many of whom I continued to meet during guest lectures at universities. Thanksgiving was then an opportunity to share who I’m thankful for. As I mentioned then, it’s only because you’re reading this that any of these posts matter, so I can’t thank you enough. May 2012 bring you success and fulfillment. And if anyone must be publicly humbled in the year ahead, may he or she have as perfect a name as New York’s former Congressman.

The 2011 Berky Award Winners

Congrats to Traveler's Quest, a dark horse Berky winner

The 2011 Berky Award Winners
originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

Have you been staying up all night wondering if you or a loved one won a Berky? It’s time for the most anticipated time of year, as the Berky Awards have arrived.

Here’s how the Berky Awards work: each year (alright, just this one so far), millions of people vote on their favorite social media services and technologies. None of those people tell me their votes, though, so I have to come up with the winners myself. The winners are treated to a printout of this column at their own expense, and a free beer at 360i’s bar whenever they’re in Tribeca.

Without further ado, here are the Berky Awards for Social Media Excellence in 2011. Please hold your applause until the end.

Design

Pinterest is a winner in too many categories to name, from Design to Curation to Photography. It also taps into that feeling of “je ne sais quoi”: the apt French phrase for the indescribable.

Development

For do-it-yourself developers or people who just like putting technology to work for them, If This, Then That is a brilliant way to combine services to make all of them more useful.

Email

What’s more social than email? Meeting people in person. But email’s way up there. For Gmail, there are two apps that get to share the Berky: Rapportive and Boomerang. Rapportive provides complete contact details, along with social profile listings, for anyone who emails you. Boomerang lets you send Gmail messages at a custom time, and (in a feature also useful for Outlook) clears non-urgent messages from your inbox and “boomerangs” them back at a later time. Boomerang parent Baydin also created The Email Game which wins two more Berky Awards for Best Productivity Game and Least Gimmicky Use of Gamification.

Fashion

Do you like showing off what you’re wearing? Neither do I, but I’m not the target audience. For teenagers, 20-something women, urban fashionistas, and hipsters of all ages, social fashion apps had a tremendous year in 2011. While Pose and Fashism earned nominations, the Berky Award for Fashion is Go Try It On, which has one of the most intuitive user experiences I’ve come across.

Games

I have a not-totally explicable obsession with Traveler’s Quest, where you find and bury virtual treasures mapped to your actual location. It’s at the forefront of the mobile trend of geo-gaming. While totally geeky, expect mainstream games to adapt a lot of the mechanics.

Humor

Visit some HappyPlace by someecards to ruin any attempts at productivity. A personal favorite: obnoxious responses to Facebook misspellings. Runner up: Literally Unbelievable, a round-up of people taking Onion stories seriously.

Media

One of my favorite technologies is Summify, which aggregates the top links shared by friends across social networks. Summify makes Twitter more useful, and it also wins the Berky for Best Customization Options. There are few other services I’ve enjoyed so much that I’ve updated the frequency of how often they email me.

Meeting People

I love using Sonar to meet people with whom I have several shared contacts. Sonar also thus wins the Berky Award for Stalking. It’s a co-runner-up with Bo.lt for Technologies That Creep People Out; neither could get the required votes this year to trump Face.com. 

Music

I don’t always listen to music, but when I do, I prefer Spotify.

Product Launches

Debates over the initial usage of Google+ tend to overlook how well Google created a new social paradigm that is integrated into all of its offerings, spanning YouTube, Blogger, search listings, and display ads. Google can safely bury the ghosts of Wave and Buzz, as there’s no doubt the company “gets” social media.

Research & Insights

Google’s unprecedented streak continues. There are so many vital and useful tools in its Think Insights, including newcomers like Google Correlate. Bookmark this and keep exploring it, as there’s so much to mine.

Shopping

Etsy’s spin on social shopping with gift recommendations is the embodiment of the value that can be accessed through Facebook’s social plugins.

Television

Interactive TV is here, if you use IntoNow (for the programs) and Shazam (for the ads). They deservedly both get Berkies. IntoNow gets a second Berky for Least Bungled Yahoo Acquisition of 2011. Hooray!

Travel

There has been an explosion of social travel apps this year. They’re really useful when you want to find advice from the two other people you know who use them. Maybe 2012 will be better. The two travel services I can’t live without are TripIt and TripAdvisor. TripIt is one of the best apps ever invented, especially due to its ease of use; you forward email travel confirmations to plans@tripit.com and it automatically builds your itinerary. TripAdvisor may be the only truly meaningful site for comprehensive travel reviews.

Twitter Apps

In the past few months, I’ve been posting heavily through Buffer, a service which spreads out your tweets so that your followers aren’t bombarded by links all at once.

Congrats to the winners!

This is an abbreviated list culled from hundreds of strong contenders. It was an honor just to nominate all of you. Let’s toast 2012 and all the innovation ahead.

16 Resolutions for Vendors

Some of my best friends are vendors! (playing Kinect with Relevvant founder Craig Davis)

16 Resolutions for Vendors
originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

I can’t do my job without great vendor relationships, but I could do my job a lot better if vendors focused on building relationships first and selling later.

Over the course of a year, I’ll get about a thousand pitches from vendors. The great ones lead to vendors becoming partners. The bad pitches get deleted. The worst get forwarded around.

In light of that, here’s my wish list for vendors. Vendors that follow the list will win more business. Granted, the best vendors don’t need this list at all, but most can use at least a few reminders.

BEFORE THE MEETING

1) Do your homework. Google whom you’re meeting with. Find shared connections on LinkedIn. Look at recent agency news.

2) Be personal. A one-line description of what you do is so much more effective than a form letter.

3) Ask questions. It’s in my best interest to make the meeting as productive as possible, so if I can help with that in any way, I will.

4) Listen. I may tell you that just because I have the word “media” in my title doesn’t mean I’m a media buyer. That’s probably an indication that you shouldn’t keep telling me about your CPMs. This is just one of the more egregious and oft-repeated examples.

5) Confirm meetings. The element of surprise is vastly overrated.

DURING THE VISIT

6) Show up five minutes early. If you’re on time, you’re late, given the time it usually takes to set up.

7) BYOD: Bring your own dongle.

8) Show, don’t sell. Share live demos of the site or app whenever possible. Make it interactive.

9) Get to your examples early. I love the meetings where the vendor says, “You guys are really well ahead of the curve, so you don’t need our 20 slides on making the case for social media,” and then they spend the next half hour on those 20 slides. Cut the set-up and get right to what you’re doing. 

10) Co-create. Often, the best meetings I’m in involve impromptu brainstorms. You’re the product experts; we’re the experts on our clients’ needs and plans. Seize the opportunity to bring the two together.

11) Food helps. In his bestselling book “Influence,” Robert Cialdini wrote, “Using what [psychologist Gregory Razran] termed the ‘luncheon technique,’ he found that his subjects became fonder of the people and things they experienced while they were eating.” And then there’s the illustrious Jenna from “30 Rock,” who timelessly said, “Me want food!” Both apply equally well.

FOLLOWING UP & ONGOING COMMUNICATION

12) Send follow-up collateral in a timely manner. The same day is preferred. If it’s a week later, you risk losing any interest from the initial meeting.

13) Attach small files. Whenever possible, do what you can to make your attachments smaller. I’ve begged and bribed my IT department enough to be able to accept 10MB files, but I can’t quickly forward those to anyone else.

14) Ask before subscribing people to your newsletter. If you’re worried about the response, maybe you don’t need a newsletter. I can’t tell you how often I unsubscribe to these. You know why I don’t need to read newsletters? Because great vendors keep me current with personal updates.

15) Respond fast. If two days go by without a response, I may not remember why I reached out in the first place. Agencies suffer from chronic attention deficit disorder. If you’ll be tied up, send a note saying when a full response will come, or forward the inquiry to someone with more bandwidth.

16) Send case studies. At a Social Times conference years ago, I was on a panel where the last question asked was, “What advice would you give the vendors in the room?” I answered, “Three words: send case studies.” I meant and still mean this in the broad sense. Send live examples. Send results with the client’s name omitted if there are privacy concerns. Send a great idea you pitched someone else and want to repurpose until you find a buyer. Whatever it is, this is the most important kind of message you can send. When they’re especially interesting, I forward these updates to anyone working on relevant clients’ accounts.

These are starting points. As my CEO would say, they’re table stakes. Practicing these will eliminate a lot of pain points for agencies. Fortunately my job involves far more pleasure than pain.

To the hundreds of vendors I actively work with, I can’t do my job without you. I admire your entrepreneurialism, vision, responsiveness, creativity, showmanship, support, and, in the best cases, friendship. I’m excited to create great experiences together in the year ahead and beyond.

How YouTube Became A Community

The new YouTube: a great new branding and engagement platform, or another (@$&ing community to manage?

How YouTube Became A Community
originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

Hey, community managers, the good news is that you have a new community to manage. Of course, that’s also the bad news.

YouTube has always been a funny site to include in social media plans. In the past, it hadn’t felt that social. Unlike Facebook, Twitter, and other explicitly social properties, it’s possible to use YouTube with absolutely no social interaction. For instance, if you’re interested in finding more coverage about the White House’s proposed extension of payroll tax cuts, you can search YouTube and find footage from the White House, Reuters, Fox News, and other established media outlets. Or perhaps you’re a normal human being and you just want to see a music video you heard about, or get a walk-through for a challenging Angry Birds level. In those cases, you’re still just there to find a video, watch it, and move on.

Sure, user-generated content has always been central to YouTube’s success, but even that is often used for broadcasting rather than interaction. And the first widely recognized breakout hit on YouTube, “Lazy Sunday,” was a “Saturday Night Live” sketch (it was shortly thereafter removed from YouTube; instead, you have to go to Hulu or NBC.com to watch it).

YouTube can rightfully counter that it’s tremendously social.  Its stat roundup notes that 150 years of YouTube videos are watched daily on Facebook, and 100 million people take a social action on YouTube weekly. With an audience of 800 million unique users, it’s an increasingly social audience. Yet it never really felt like a place for community. It always felt like a way to distribute content -- a channel.

The latest updates to YouTube change everything. There are a couple reasons for this in particular:

1) The homepage is entirely designed around subscriptions, whether that’s to people, publishers, or brands. Your experience on YouTube now heavily depends on these content creators and curators, whose updates appear in a central column reminiscent of Facebook’s News Feed. In my center column as I write this, I see updates from my friends: Jeremiah Owyang shared a video on Google+, Kevin Nalts uploaded a new short, and Walt Ribeiro commented on a music video. These are mixed in with uploads from NASA, Old Spice, Coca-Cola, and National Geographic Channel.

2) As a content producer on YouTube, it’s no longer just about uploading videos. You can share videos with comments, or even post textual status updates. These are far more social and conversational features, rather than before when it was solely about broadcasting your own content. There are more ways to engage audiences.

Granted, this could just turn YouTube into a new form of an interactive program guide. But the more time I spend with the new YouTube, the more I’m sucked into it because of the social features. If Coca-Cola publishes a video and I like the brand, sure, I’ll want to get those updates; as they’re a client, I’m especially interested. If a friend shares a Coca-Cola video, though, then it will really stand out, and I’ll be far more likely to watch it.

Now this leads to a whole series of contorted pros and cons and benefits and challenges. As a consumer, I’m now more motivated to return to YouTube to see what other people are sharing, and possibly share more videos myself. But a lot of the videos are being shared on Facebook and Google+, so then maybe I don’t need to spend any additional time at youtube.com. Then again, there’s so much noise on other social networks that I’ll need to go to YouTube’s homepage to see what my friends are sharing. But do I really need to see more content? As an added hurdle, it’s harder to find and add friends on YouTube than it is on just about any other network.

I don’t know where I’ll net out as a user, but the fact that people can make all of these decisions about YouTube is a strong indicator that community managers need to pay attention. Brands that are already active on YouTube now have a chance to see which approaches attract more viewers, subscribers, and interactions. Should a brand upload more videos? What about sharing more of others’ videos? What about creating new playlists? Do textual updates generate any responses or make a difference in some way? It’s not clear, and it will likely vary based on the brand and how consumers relate to that brand. Yet those brands active on YouTube can start finding out what works. Brands that aren’t involved with YouTube may be more motivated to try it.

All of this means that community managers have more work to do. Given how much demand there is for their services right now, I’m not sure how many are thrilled by the news. They should relish knowing that all of the Web is readily migrating to their worldview, with every site a community just waiting to be managed.